Tuesday 8 January 2013

Devouring Stephen King: Rose Madder

"It filled her eyes and her mind with the sort of clean revelatory excitement that belongs only to the works of art that deeply move us- the song that made us cry, the story that made us see the world clearly from another person's perspective, at least for awhile, the poem that made us glad to be alive, the dance that made us forget for a few minutes that someday we won't be."

The best thing about Rose Madder, I think, is the fact that now I'm done with it, I can blitz through quite a few Stephen Kings because I've read them before, and edge ever closer to finally, finally reading On Writing, (I literally only have one other new King book before it) and then onto the books that have been released since I started doing this whole thing, that DAMMIT I WANT TO READ SO BADLY. I realise this doesn't say much for Rose Madder though, and, well, we'll get to that.

So Rose Madder is a book that's part of Stephen King's whole 'women's rights' thing, which is something that I both appreciate him SO much for attempting, but which I also don't think he gets completely right, at any point. But still, total points for trying. In this tale of women's woe, Rose Daniels is a woman who has been constantly battered by her husband for 14 years, until one day, when she sees a spot of blood on her bedsheets she decides that she has to leave or he'll kill her. The fact that he'll also try to kill her if she leaves is something she considers too, but in the end the risk seems worth taking. So she escapes and it's all awesome and she starts to build a life that's all for herself in a city which King never names for no earthly reason, but which is clearly Chicago.

And I love all of this. Abused woman makes good, gets a job, meets the man of her dreams and so on and so on. But that's not all there is to it, and the rest of it... It ain't good. Firstly, the whole supernatural element is ridiculous, and not in a so-ridiculous-it's-good way, more in a
kind of way. All I'm going to say to you about that is PAINTING THAT COMES TO LIFE, and, well, this does not impress me unless it's in Mary Poppins.
So that was silly and annoying, and I would have preferred for Rose to solve her problems in a real life way instead of relying on some obscure figure IN A PAINTING to do it for her. I mean, that would have been a lot more useful book, and one that would have been a lot more uplifting instead of making me roll my eyes quite a lot and just being irritated.

And then the other thing that really got to me was that there are fairly large chunks of the book that are told from Rose's INSANE husband's perspective. And when I say insane, I really mean insane. Like, the dude is a psychopath. And interestingly enough, it wasn't that fun being inside his head. I mean, it made me actively uncomfortable, and I kind of didn't need it. And I don't think for a minute that this wasn't the effect that King was aiming for, but there were points in it where I sort of wanted to throw up because he thinks about really horrifying things, and, again, I just didn't need it.

But what I really didn't need from being inside his head were the bits where King kind of made us try to feel sorry for him. For this character who we meet when he beats his wife so hard that she has a miscarriage, for this rapist, this murderer, King tries to explain away his action by his dad abusing him when he was young. And I get that this is an actual reason for the actions of abusers, but what it isn't is an excuse, and I think it kind of sucked for King to make it seem like one, in any way. And, I'll say it again, I just didn't need to be inside his head at all! This book would have been fine without that, and it would have been way shorter too, which would have been good for it, frankly.

So. You could say that it's not one of my favourites. Would I say that I outright hated it? I wouldn't- I did love the 'woman escapes abusive husband, makes good' narrative, and if it had mostly stuck to that and I hadn't had to climb into said abusive husband's disgusting skin, I would have felt a lot better about it. So... An average to bad book? Yeah, let's go with that.

22 comments:

  1. Ok, I know you said you didn't like the whole 'in the head of the super gross and nasty husband' part - but that's the only thing in that review that made me think I might one day want to read the book. So perhaps I'll pass on this one, or leave it until I've read up all the awesome King books and then curse myself for leaving the crap and not-crap-but-not-good.

    Also, I really want to watch Mary Poppins now.

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    1. GOD, Kayleigh, you are SICK. SICK I TELL YOU! It really is horrid and I didn't need it and hmph. You probably shouldn't do that thing you're thinking of doing, because seriously, you're going to be all dissatisfied and then at the end you'll hate SK! And that won't be good!

      I ALWAYS want to watch Mary Poppins. It was on over here last week but I missed it *MEGASADFACE*

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    2. You missed it?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? The world should stop when Mary Poppins is on,*nothing* should get in the way.

      I haven't read too many books inside a psycho's mind which is probably why I'm ok with this - although I know at some point I'll be curled up in the fetal position crying "I should have listened to Laura, she knows what's what" and then I'd die.

      Also, I should perhaps come up with a system for reading Stephen King, because right now it's just a 'look on the shelf and see which one I see first, no wait that one looks to big, yeah ok that'll do' sort of non-system.

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    3. Ok, so, by missed it I mean that for the first bit of it I was tiredly and aimlessly wandering around Windsor (slept round a friend's house and was on my way home) and then when I got home my dad was evil and watching horse-racing, I believe. ALSO the day before I missed The Sound of Music, so my Christmas was BEREFT of Julie Andrews :'(

      Good! Apart from the dying bit. The 'you should have listened to Laura' bit is all good though. I don't know if you've read American Psycho or not, but... it's not as bad as that. But still. It's pretty horrid. And then also annoying.

      Haaaaaa, that sooo used to be my system. Or it was like 'The Green Mile is my faaaavourite, let's read that again!' Actually, swap The Green Mile for It. And then you've got it!

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  2. Aww man, A for effort for King trying to write something more lady centered. But sad for him not quite nailing it. And for the time in a psychopaths head, which at one point (prior to reading any books like that) I would have said was awesome. DO NOT LIKE IT IN THERE.

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    1. Total A for effort. Like, I really want to hug him for trying, but the execution is reeeeally not all there bless him. But I love that he cares enough to try, you know?

      IT IS NO FUN BEING IN A PSYCHOPATH'S HEAD! Trust me, I read American Psycho TWICE just to check. Not. Fun. (This was not quite as gross as American Psycho, but still totally upsetting and horrible and BLUERGH!)

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    2. UGH why would you read AP twice? Did you at some point think "Oh there is NO WAY this is as bad as I remember" only to realize "Nope, it's worse". That scene with the rat...

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    3. Ok, so the problem with it was that I *couldn't* remember much about it, so I was like 'oh this will be fine', but actually, I just BLOCKED MOST OF IT OUT. Like the rat bit. I used to have NO recollection of it. I do now... :(

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    4. And this right here is the PERFECT reason for a book blog. Cos then you can look back at what you wrote and remember that it was AWFUL and SCARRING and OMG BEE what is wrong with you???

      Also you can convince other people to read the book with you because if I have to have those images in my head, then everyone else does too.

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    5. Duuuude, that totally was one of my reasons for starting a book blog! As well as, like, wanting to talk about books with people, like with AP I could have gone 'OH MY GOD, WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS DUDE, HOLD ME EVERYONE!' and all the sympathy could have been gotten!

      Woooord. I think EVERYONE should read American Psycho *WINK*

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  3. How is it clearly Chicago? TALK TO ME ABOUT MY CITY.

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    1. Ok SO he constantly says 'this huge city in the midwest' without saying Chicago for NO REASON and so I thought, ok, he wants to keep it anonymous for... some reason that he probably has, but THEN he has the main character live next to Bryant Park which confused me because I thought that was just in NYC but actually google told me there's one in Chicago too?

      But anyway, yeah, I'm fairly certain it's Chicago, but I have NO idea why he was so coy about not naming it.

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  4. See, this is really useful. Because I'm 100 page from the end of IT and it's so so good and it makes me want to read ALL the King. But that would take forever and there are a lot of books out there that I want to read other than King books, so it's good to know what King to avoid. Thanks for taking the book bullet, Laura.

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    1. I ALWAYS take the Stephen King bullet. So, you're welcome. Also don't read The Tommyknockers, whatever you do. Is IT your first King? Because if it is... I don't know that he's written anything better. So NICE WORK reading the best first! (The Green Mile is pretty good though. You can read that next if you want ;) )

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  5. Chicago, really? Now I'm curious to read it to see if he drops super obvious hints about my city, but I'm too freaked out by going through a psycho's mind to get to it, ughh.

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    1. It's not even super obvious hints, man, it's just Stephen King Describing Chicago and yet not naming it for NO REASON. So don't worry about it, is what I say!

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  6. Ok so I found this post looking for a connection between Rose Madder and the Dark Tower series. Dorcas mentions the city of Lud in the book but I can't think of how events in this contributed to events in the Dark Tower series. Any help?
    Also people wondering about Chicago: at one point King writes that the city is windy, politicians and weather wise. Norman wears a CHISOX hat. And everyone is infatuated with Michael Jordan when Norman gets his haircut.

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    1. I'm curious if the child Caroline has some greater part in mid world. Other than just mentioning mud that's all I can come up with.

      Also they mention something about some building having a view of lake Michigan.

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  7. Interesting point about Chicago. It is weird the city remains unnmaed when everthing else is.
    But as for "excusing" Norman's behavior, or making us "feel sorry" for him, I'd have to disagree. King takes us into Norman's warped mind in order to show us just how warped it is. He uses Norman's character to take a swipe at everything he hates in America, not to "excuse" him. I agree the abusive father story is a bit too obvious and seems like a cheap "psychological" reason for Norman's mad behavior, and that sometimes King lays it on too thick when it comes to Norman's daddy issues. But the book still works. In fact, it's one my favorites.
    It's not one of King's most subtle novels, but it certainly packs an emotional punch. At least it did for me.

    I agree that going inside the picture sounds a bit like a mad version of Mary Poppins (and I'm sure King is well aware of that), but even those bits when Rose steps into the frame have something going for them. I didn't find this too long. For King, this is considered a rather short one:)

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    1. I think you're probably right about being in the warped mind to show us, you know, its disturbingness, but it reaaaaally freaked me out too much for me to be like 'oh! That's so awesome and clever and disturbing but still good' which, you know, is probably my problem more than anything, but still.

      I'm glad you liked it though! There were definitely parts that didn't work at all for me, but it's still better than, say, The Tommyknockers, so it has that going for it.

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  8. lool. what a bunch of hacks. mmmm my book blog. lol. the doorwats to another plane is the bggezt and most obviosu connection to the dark tower. theres at least three lines in rose madder that reflect on the dark tower epic.

    ps. if you didnt want to mortifed and disturbed, why read king in the first place.

    pss
    S.K. is a long used reference to Kierkegaard.

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    1. Oh wow, thank you so much for your amazing insights and for expressing them with correct spellings and everything. Loljk please go away.

      p.s. I'm not sure I ever used the word mortified, and being disturbed wasn't really the problem. But thanks for reading everything so thoroughly and carefully, the world needs more people like you!

      pps. It's amazing that people would use SK to refer to Kierkegaard when those are his initials. I wonder why I would use them to refer to Stephen King. How WEIRD of me.

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